Green Party presidential hopeful arrested in pipeline protest

October 31, 2012|Reuters

(Jonathan Ernst Reuters, REUTERS)

(Reuters) - Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested in Texas on Wednesday for criminal trespass when she tried to bring food and other supplies to protesters opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline, a local official said.

Ty Oaks, a corrections officer at the Wood County jail, said Stein, 62, was released after she promised to return to appear in court on the trespass charge. Oaks did not know when Stein's court date would be.

Calls to the Green Party, an environment-oriented left-leaning party, requesting comment on Stein's arrest were not immediately returned.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would ship oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, is opposed by activists on environmental and other grounds.

Some opponents have been conducting a month-long sit-in on land in Wood County cleared for the pipeline, in an effort to block construction. Several people who visited the anti-pipeline protesters in recent weeks, including the actress Daryl Hannah, have been arrested for trespassing.

Stein, in a statement on her website, called the protest in Wood County "the front line of the climate crisis today." She said she was willing to be arrested "in order to show solidarity with this blockade."

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Todd Eastham)